Planner journey in 2014…

Wow…this year was a roller coaster ride with my planner. I don’t think I’ve changed this many planners in a year as I did in 2014. I reached the height of confusion and indecision. It was probably also a reflection of my life during 2014…. Bumps, diversions, changes and eventually settling down.

The year started off with me thinking I could do something different. After a couple of years of using a FF Personal (with a brief touch of A5s), I thought I could go back to a system that I used several years back… the Moleskine. Ah the Moleskine, with their cream-coloured paper and grey lettering, always a pleasure to look at. I bought the Week+Notes edition with a red cover. I loved how compact it felt and how easy it was to carry around. Slowly, but surely I realized that once a ring-bound convert, going back is difficult. While I loved the notes page, I never had enough space on the week page. I tend to write my to-do and follow-up items by date, so I know when I need to tackle them. So this format just didn’t work. Worse still was the inability to carry extra paper or to fit in my essential information which is written on address pages of a Personal. For a while, I carried my FF Compact Raspberry Chameleon just for these pages. The whole thing was a total fail and I managed to barely make it through January.

Come February, I was so depressed. I happened to visit WH Smith and ended up buying a FF Personal Holborn in lovely brown. The Holborn is such a lovely binder and so functional as well. I was happy, really happy. With all the changes going on in my life at the time, the Holborn was my perfect solace.

I did venture into buying a Midori Traveller’s Notebook in March. But as soon as I set it up, I realized that I could never use it for work. So I used it for personal stuff… like, blog notes, poems, sketching and gratitude journal. I kept the MTN by my bedside and came home and wrote in it every night.

In June, I had a brainwave. I thought I should try using a wirebound planner. Don’t ask me why. I was browsing through Paperchase and they just got a stock of academic diaries and I thought why not? I bought a weekly version and while it was a nice diary, it was horrible for me. I didn’t even get through a week. What was I even thinking?

July brought a major change in my life, with me quitting my job after more than 10 years with the company. Somehow I decided I needed a reward. I ordered a FF A5 Charleston in Purple. I thought I should give the A5 another go. I was very busy with a lot of personal paperwork and visits to government offices. Funnily enough, the A5 was a really good companion. Given that I didn’t have the added weight of carrying around my work Laptop, I didn’t mind the size or the weight. I loved the look, the feel and the organization.

The A5 was a wonderful experience till I started getting really busy at my new job in September. Somehow the week on two pages format wasn’t cutting it any more. So I decided to browse for better diary options, thinking I would start 2015 with something new. I realized that if I were to switch back to a personal size I would need more space so DO2P or else 2DPP if it was going to be an A5.

After many years of Filofax, I ventured into unknown territory and found myself looking at the Franklin website. I really liked the diary layout of the DO2P and was trying to contemplate what that added width on the personal pages would feel like. Truth be told, none of the binders seemed really attractive until I found myself looking at the Boston binder. They didn’t have it in Classic and that was probably a good thing because the added width that I was pondering over has turned out to be just enough. I found a three-month pack and ordered it with the binder. I love it. The binder is even wide enough to hold A4 pages folded in half, and I’m not too fussy that the top of the paper sticks out. Three months down the line, I have ordered a complete refill for 2015. So ends my planner journey for the year.

My life has also settled down quite a bit. I’m in a better place with my new job and personally I feel a sense of relief.

I hope I can ring in the new year on this positive note… Happy New Year everyone!!